House of Cards
by Astralis
Summary: COMPLETE. She'd always said she could never take a life, but one day she didn't have a choice. NS.
1. Chapter One

**HOUSE OF CARDS**

**Disclaimer: **I think we've established by now that I don't own them.

**

* * *

**

_Slow motion. _

All she sees is the bullet, so fast but so relentlessly slow, on a straight and almighty path through the air. She follows it with her eyes, follows it to its destination.

Impact. Human flesh ripping, a man staggering, a growing red patch on the back of his shirt.

The sounds amplified, so that they are the only ones she can hear. Gasping. The soft slump of a body to the floor. Her own breath and heartbeat, echoing inside her head, pounding inside her skull. Someone shouting, close by but so far away she doesn't recognise the voice and barely recognises her own name.

Death creeps in.

She lowers her gun, and starts to shake.

* * *

To Nick, it all happened within seconds. He had barely seen Sara arrive before she was firing her gun. He saw, for brief, horrible moments, and was glad that Sara could not, the look on the man's face as the bullet ripped through him and he slumped to the floor. The man was just a body now; all that he had been, gone. Nick almost overbalanced and leaned back against the wall, his breath flowing out like a sudden stream, thinking, _It's over.  
_  
Then he saw Sara, really saw her, and realised that it had only just begun. She was still in a shooting stance, her gun clutched in both hands, and she was shaking visibly. Even as the officers on duty dashed past her to the body in front of Nick she stayed rooted to the spot. Nick forced himself off the wall and walked over to her, fighting to control limbs that seemed to belong to a stranger. All was silent but for his echoing footsteps on the concrete floor, Sara's ragged, too-loud breathing and the voice of one of the officers, calling for an ambulance. Las Vegas seemed to lie asleep outside the walls of the empty warehouse. 

He reached out one careful hand and put in gently on both of Sara's, noting the shudder in his own hand and the unreal coldness in hers, and pushed her arms down, before prising the gun from her grasp and letting it clatter to the ground. Sara didn't flinch at Nick's movements, or the sudden metallic crash of gun to floor. Her eyes were still glued to the body of the man she had shot. Nick stepped in front of her, deliberately blocking her view, and put his hands on her shoulders. "Sara..."

She blinked, slowly, and brought her eyes to focus on Nick for all of two seconds before she swallowed sharply, turned, and dashed outside. He followed her slowly, not ungrateful for the excuse to leave the warehouse, and stood back until she'd finished throwing up in a dark corner and turned around again. "I've already processed that bit," she said. "I didn't contaminate the scene."

"Oh, honey," said Nick, unable to think of anything other than a rare term of endearment. Sara's skin was far too pale in the shadows cast by the halogen lamps she'd set up to process the yard. "I wasn't worrying about that."

"I just shot someone, didn't I?" Sara asked in the flat tone of voice that Nick knew meant she was falling apart inside.

"Yes, but he was waving a gun at my head." Nick swallowed. The line didn't lighten the atmosphere. "You saved my life, Sara."

Whether he reached out for her or she for him he never knew; all he remembered was holding her, savouring the feel of her body in his arms when minutes ago he'd thought he'd never see her again. "You saved my life, Sara," he said again, murmuring the words into her hair.

"I couldn't not," she replied, her voice cracking and muffled against his shoulder. "You okay?" she asked, raising her head and looking at him. He noted the unshed tears in her eyes.

"No. Not really." He held her gaze for a few more seconds. "Are you?

"No."

Nick shivered, and closed his eyes in an attempt to block out the harsh glare of the lamps against the dark. This empty yard looked like nothing so much as a kind of industrial hell, a place of death and destruction. The crazed eyes of the gunman assaulted him as suddenly and as brightly as if his mind was a canvas, and he opened his eyes again, because reality wasn't as bad as that. He tried to smile at the top of Sara's head where she'd buried it against his shoulder again. "Maybe we should go back inside. It might not be safe out here."

Sara shuddered, and her scared eyes met his for a moment, but she let him guide her back into the warehouse.

One of the officers was kneeling beside the dead man. The other had secured the weapons - Sara's, and the dead man's. "Can't let you guys touch him," said the first officer, regretfully.

"S'all right," Nick muttered, standing with Sara, their backs to the wall beside the door. His mind was blank now. Every time he had a gun held to his head it was like this - first the overwhelming emotion, then the blankness that came as he tried to comprehend it all, to understand what could have happened. Next came the nightmares, and interminable hours with the departmental counselor. He knew the process now. He'd done it twice already and knew that the feelings raised from having a gun pointed at his head wouldn't diminish for a long time.

An uneasy silence reigned in the warehouse, a silence with a disturbingly edgy quality to it. Every external sound startled each of them, Sara so much so that Nick kept a hand on her arm in a futile attempt to reassure them both. The sound of sirens in the distance was welcome contact with the outside world, but a warehouse buzzing with paramedics and cops, scurrying about like so many attempts, was an obviously unwanted reminder of humanity for Sara. She closed her eyes and Nick felt her body tense beside him.

They were ignored for longer than Nick thought possible. The first person to approach them was Jim Brass, fresh from another crime scene. "You guys will have to come down to PD for a debrief," he told them, in tones that were less gruff than usual. "Standard procedure. Which of you did the shooting?"

"Me," Sara muttered without looking at him.

"I'm your union rep. You're entitled to have me sit in on your interview."

Sara nodded.

"Can we go?" Nick asked, eager to get away from the cops and their curious glances, the blood, and the physical reminder of the night's events.

Brass led them to the warmth and relative comfort of a departmental SUV. The contrast to the sharp, grey, austere surroundings of the warehouse was not lost on Nick, but he preferred to stare out the window and try to erase the image of the gunman from his mind.

* * *

TBC 


	2. Chapter Two

**_HOUSE OF CARDS_**

**Disclaimer:**I still don't own anything you recognise.

* * *

"Mr Stokes, I'm David Elliott from Internal Affairs. I need to ask you some questions concerning tonight's shooting."  
  
Nick nodded. He was used to these stark, formal interrogation rooms, but not from this side of the table. It wasn't a comfortable feeling. "Sure." He almost said "Shoot", but decided in time that that was not likely to endear him to Elliott.  
  
"Describe to me the events that led up to the shooting."  
  
"I was working the case of a young homeless women who was found in a warehouse downtown. She'd been raped and murdered. CSIs Grissom and Sidle were working the case with me." Nick paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. "CSI Grissom accompanied the body to the coroner, and CSI Sidle and I remained to process the scene. "I was working inside the warehouse and CSI Sidle was outside. I heard footsteps enter through the rear door and looked up, expecting to see CSI Sidle or one of the officers on duty." He paused again, swallowed, went on. "Instead it was a man in his early twenties. He was waving a gun around. I asked him to put it down, but he kept approaching me. He was talking - raving. I think he was high on something. He had me backed up against the wall when CSI Sidle entered." Nick tried to talk as blandly as he could, trying not to see the man's eyes as he spoke. "And she shot him," he added.   
  
"Did CSI Sidle warn the victim that she was about to shoot?"  
  
Nick sat silent, trying to remember. In truth, he only barely recalled Sara's entrance, and the only sound he recollected from those moments was the man's voice, and the gunshot, breaking through everything. "I don't know," he replied, slowly and reluctantly and hating himself for every word.  
  
"Why did CSI Sidle enter the warehouse?"  
  
Nick sighed. "I don't know. Maybe she'd found something, maybe she heard a noise. You'd have to ask her."  
  
"I will. All right, Mr Stokes, let's talk about CSI Sidle. How long have you known her?"  
  
"For six years, since she transferred to Las Vegas."  
  
"Do you know her well?"  
  
"Yes," Nick replied, in perfect truth.  
  
"And you were working a rape case with her."  
  
"Rape and murder," Nick clarified, wondering where this was going and suspecting that he wasn't going to be very pleased when it got there.  
  
"Given CSI Sidle's usual reaction to rape cases, do you believe she was in a fit state to mind to be working in the field tonight?"  
  
Nick clenched his fists under the desk. "Yes. I believe she was."  
  
David Elliott cleared his throat, studied Nick's face for a few seconds, then turned his eyes to the papers in front of him. "Tell me about your relationship with CSI Sidle."  
  
"Sara - CSI Sidle - and I are good friends."  
  
"Is that all, Mr Stokes?"  
  
"Are you implying something, Mr Elliott?" Nick countered, knowing that the man was, and trying to keep his cool.  
  
Elliott extracted a sheet of paper from the pile and handed it to Nick. "CSI Ecklie of the day shift lodged an improper conduct complaint against you and CSI Sidle three months ago regarding an incident in the locker room at CSI."  
  
Nick dropped the piece of paper without looking at it. He knew what it said. "I'm not sure how that's relevant."  
  
"Mr Stokes, are you having a physical relationship with CSI Sidle?"  
  
Long minutes of silence passed, broken only by the loud ticking of the clock on the wall. Nick stared down at the desk. No matter what he said it was likely to be the wrong answer in this situation, so he said nothing at all.  
  
"What I think happened, Mr Stokes," said Elliott, finally, "is that CSI Sidle saw you in danger and reacted emotionally and unprofessionally without following the correct procedures."  
  
Silence.  
  
"Is that a possible explanation for the events, Mr Stokes?"  
  
"If Sara hadn't shot that man when she did, I'd probably be dead!" Nick leant back in his chair and put his hands over this face, the reality of death encroaching on him even here in this sterile room.  
  
"That's very unlikely, Mr Stokes, because there were no bullets in the victim's gun!"  
  
Nick started, and stared at Elliott in surprise before recovering himself. "Makes no difference," he said. "A gun is a weapon even unloaded. Anyway, neither CSI Sidle nor myself could have known it was empty."  
  
"Neither of you made an appropriate attempt to communicate with the victim. You both assumed that he planned to shoot you, Mr Stokes, and reacted accordingly."  
  
"Have you ever had a gun pointed at your head, Mr Elliott? It's common to make a lot of assumptions in that situation, and none of them involve the idea that the gunman might not be planning on shooting you! Look, Mr Elliott, what are we doing here? Are you trying to bring Sara down?"  
  
"I am _trying_, Mr Stokes, to demonstrate to the public that members of the Las Vegas police department are professionals who use force only as a last resort!"  
  
There was silence in the room again. Nick found himself looking everywhere but at Elliott, wondering how Sara was, trying to erase those crazed eyes from his memory.  
  
"I may want to speak with you again, Mr Stokes," Elliott said eventually. Nick took this as a dismissal and walked out into the corridor on legs that didn't quite seem to support his weight.  
  
The noise of the PD corridors, never silent even in the middle of the night, was a welcome relief from silence and irritation. Nick walked the corridors simply because he didn't know what else to do. He'd almost been killed. Sara had saved his life, and now it seemed like she was going to be in trouble for it.  
  
Where was she, anyway? She had to be off with Brass somewhere waiting for Elliott. Nick suspected he wasn't supposed to talk to her, but all he wanted was to see that she was all right, and to prove that he was all right, too.  
  
Nick walked, and walked, without seeing her anywhere.

* * *

Sara had locked herself into a cubicle in the women's bathroom. She sat with her head in her hands, unable to stop reliving the evening's events. She saw herself walking into the warehouse, saw Nick, backed up against the wall, a gun almost touching his head, the look of fear in his eyes. And then she'd just... reacted. Pulled out her gun and shot him.  
  
At the same time as she saw Nick dead, his eyes staring but sightless, the images of nightmares past and nightmares to come, she saw the dead man, felled by a bullet from her own gun, and she hated herself.  
  
It was an unthinkable choice. She knew she could not have stood there and watched Nick die. To do that would have killed her too, because her heart was too much bound up with his at the moment. She had made the only choice she could, but in doing so she had done something she had always sworn she would never do, and Sara did not promise things, to herself or to others, lightly. Now the knowledge that she had done the only thing she could was little comfort.  
  
After a long while, she stood up, unlocked the door, washed the few traces of tears from her face, and stepped back out into the world to face the music.  
  
Brass was waiting for her, leaning against the wall with his arms folded. Nick was hovering anxiously by his side. There was a look of something pained in his eyes, but they lit up when Sara emerged. She smiled at him, anxiously, nervously, and was really rather glad that he wasn't dead. "David Elliott's waiting, Sara," said Brass, almost softly.  
  
"Okay." She swallowed.  
  
"You'll be all right," Nick whispered, putting one hand on her shoulder for a moment as she prepared to follow Brass.  
  
Sara looked at him, and wanted to go home, but instead she swallowed again and started to walk.

* * *

TBC...


	3. Chapter Three

_**HOUSE OF CARDS**_

**Disclaimer: **I still don't own anything you recognise. Funny that.

* * *

"Sara, it's me. They've sent me home, so I'm at your place, okay? Um, I guess, just come home when you can. I hope it went all right with Elliott. Love you, 'bye."

* * *

Sara fumbled her key a few times, but finally got the door open. As soon as she did, she heard Nick's voice. "Sara?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
He was standing and heading towards her as she entered. His red eyes betrayed the forced smile. They halted a foot or two apart, looking at each other nervously. "Did it go all right with Elliott?" Nick asked carefully.  
  
"No." Sara shook her head, swallowed, and blinked frantically several times, trying not to meet Nick's eyes. Nick stepped forward and hugged her fiercely. "He brought up all this - all this stuff."  
  
"What stuff?"  
  
"Ecklie's improper conduct charge. The rape cases. Me pulling a gun on that suspect after the lab explosion. The DUI. Everything I thought was over and done with."  
  
"What's all that got to do with anything?" Nick demanded.  
  
"This crackpot theory that I, being unstable - the implication was, more than usual - " Sara tried to sound flippant, but ended up choking on her words. "That I shot that man because of my relationship with you." She attempted to concentrate of the reassuring feel of Nick rubbing her back.  
  
"He tried to tell me that, too."  
  
"Well, he doesn't want me back in the field until I've been cleared by the departmental counselor."  
  
"That's standard practice, isn't it?"  
  
"Yes, but I don't have to _like_ it," said Sara, and startled herself considerably by bursting into tears. "That's not all," she said after a few minutes, pulling away from Nick enough to wipe her face with the back of a hand. "His gun was empty."  
  
"I know. They told me."  
  
Sara sniffed. "It's been a really bad night, huh?"

* * *

Grissom had expected to find a message from David Elliott when he returned to the lab, but that didn't mean he wasn't annoyed about it. He ran his unit the way he saw fit and didn't appreciate interference, especially not from Internal Affairs types.  
  
Elliott, who had already had Nick and Sara's personal files sent over to PD, wanted to speak to him regarding the conduct of members of the team. Grissom had a sneaking suspicion that someone was pulling Elliott's strings and that the standard investigation into Sara's use of deadly force was going to turn into a witch hunt. With elections in six weeks, it probably wasn't much of a stretch to suspect that the Sheriff wanted to show he had his finger on the pulse of the city's law enforcement. Grissom sighed. He wouldn't let any member of his team become a sacrificial lamb if he could help it.  
  
He had let those personal files go only with great misgivings, because he knew they didn't tell the full story. Gil Grissom didn't believe in good people's careers being damaged for silly, careless, errors. He believed they'd learn from their mistakes and move on, and by and large his team had repaid his trust in them. What worried him was Elliott getting wind of something like that DUI of Sara's from a few years back on the PD grapevine. He'd have a field day with it.  
  
Grissom rubbed his eyes. He and Greg had had to finish processing Nick and Sara's scene and they'd only just got back. He cursed the fact that IA did not sleep where public relations was involved, not even at five a.m, and picked up the phone and dialled. "Mr Elliott? Gil Grissom, CSI."   
  
As Elliott lay out charge after charge, Grissom found himself glad that the man was not there in person. It was the only thing he had to be glad about. It seemed Elliott had pulled Catherine's and Warrick's files while Grissom had been in the field, and had somehow acquired almost encyclopedic knowledge of a number of incidents that Grissom had chosen either to downplay or leave out altogether, thus acting improperly himself. Warrick's gambling addiction was among the charges, although in greatly exaggerated form. The Kristy Hopkins affair had been dredged up from the depths of time. There was Catherine's relatively minor punishment following what Elliott called "the little incident" in which she'd accidentally blown up the DNA lab. Sara's arrest for driving under the influence was brought up as well, and Elliott even had something to say about the small note Grissom had added to her file when he'd removed her from the case of a girl who'd been raped in her own home and later gunned down in the driveway.  
  
Eventually Grissom found his voice. "My people are good people, Mr Elliott. We're the number two lab in the country. There are countless people behind bars because of my guys."  
  
"A man is dead because of a member of your team, Dr Grissom."  
  
"CSI Sidle acted to save the life of a colleague. Without her, he could be dead now, loaded gun or not." Three times now had Nick had a gun held to his head. Grissom wondered how this would affect him.  
  
"Dr Grissom, perhaps you'd like to explain why you allowed two people who have had an improper conduct charge lodged against them to continue working in the field together."  
  
"CSI Sidle and CSI Stokes work extremely well together, and they get results. I was under the impression that that was what my unit was for."  
  
"The unit must be seen to function in a transparent, professional manner. There have been suggestions of poor conduct at the graveyard shift unit in the past, yet nothing has been done. The negligence of a member of your team caused the death of a rookie CSI six years ago, yet that member continues in a career as a CSI."  
  
"CSI Brown was negligent, and he knows it, Mr Elliott. He lives with it every day. I made a decision not to let him go because I needed him on my team. Also, Mr Elliott, by your own standards, if shooting a man who threatened a colleague with death is a crime, then I imagine you would rather not have had CSI Brown shoot to kill, had he been present at the scene." Grissom was recalling, with every fibre of his being, why it was he loathed departmental politics with a red-hot passion.  
  
"Dr Grissom, this has been about more than the actions of CSI Sidle since I discovered the improper conduct charge in her file. It's about the whole of the graveyard shift unit and the performance of their supervisor."  
  
"I would advise you to check out our clearance rate, Mr Elliott," Grissom responded in the cool voice that Greg, when he thought Grissom wasn't listening, had once described as dangerous. Inwardly, he was seething, and more than a bit afraid. If Elliott so chose, he could take them all down.

* * *

Sara was awake when Nick began to whimper in his sleep. Having nothing else to do they'd gone to bed and reassured themselves that they were still alive in the best way they could. Nick had fallen asleep afterwards, but she had stayed awake, watching over him as he slept. she wasn't in the mood for sleep herself.  
  
"Hey." She touched his shoulder gently. "Nick, it's all right." He whimpered again, and seemed to shrink away from her touch, even in his sleep. "Nick, wake up." She shook him with the hand on his shoulder. His bare skin was hot and sweaty.  
  
Nick opened his eyes and stared at her. He blinked, and groanded. "Nightmare... did I wake you up, Sar?"  
  
"I wasn't sleeping," she said quietly, smiling at him. "It's probably just as well."  
  
"Sara, come here." Nick put his arms around her and pulled her down so that she lay on top of him. "I love you. I love you," Nick said fiercely, and his voice broke. "Oh, Sara." He clutched at her and rocked her as though she was a child, his tears dampening her hair as he repeated "I love you" like a mantra through his sobs.  
  
And Sara held him as tight as she could, and wished they could both have peace, and then her tears mingled with his as they lay in the dark and tried not to comprehend the reality of death.  
  
Later, when they both slept, they dreamt of gunshots.

* * *

TBC...


	4. Chapter Four

**_HOUSE OF CARDS_**

**Disclaimer:**I don't own them. As far as my sanity's concerned, that could be a good thing.

* * *

Grissom had just finished his conversation with Elliott when someone knocked on the door and two someones came in without waiting for a response. "Hey Griss, what's going on?" Warrick asked, obviously getting straight to the point of why they were there.   
  
Grissom sighed. "Some maniac held Nick up at a crime scene. Sara shot him from behind. Internal Affairs are having a field day."  
  
"You're _joking_," said Catherine flatly. "Did she actually kill him?"  
  
"Yes. She thought he was about to shoot Nick."  
  
Catherine dropped into a chair, concern clear on her face. "Are they all right?"  
  
Shrugging, Grissom looked from her to Warrick. "I have no idea, I haven't been able to talk to them. They've been with IA."  
  
"But they cleared Sara, right?" Warrick asked.  
  
Grissom shook his head and told them about the conversation with David Elliott. It was punctuated, rather predictably, by outraged comments.  
  
"That's ancient history!" Catherine snapped as soon as Grissom's recital was over. She'd been growing more and more furious. "Surely there's nothing they can do about all that now."  
  
"Yeah, Griss, we've all been toeing the line these last few years. Nothing to complain about, right?" Warrick looked more indignant than Grissom had ever seen him look.  
  
"It's not me who needs to be convinced." Grissom looked at his colleagues, and decided to tell them something Elliott had taken great delight in. They were bound to find out anyway, now. "And that's not quite the case, Warrick, much as I wish it was."  
  
"Why?" he asked worriedly.  
  
"Because Ecklie lodged an improper conduct charge against Sara and Nick three months ago. I spoke to them about it, but the charge had to go into their files. IA say it was inappropriate to allow them to continue working in the field together."  
  
"Improper conduct?" Catherine exploded. "Sara? Is Ecklie delusional? What does he say they did?"  
  
"He caught them kissing in the locker room," said Grissom dully, acutely aware that with other people and in other situations this scene might have been funny.  
  
"Serious?" Warrick asked.  
  
"Oh yes. They promised not to let it happen again and not to let it interfere with their work, and I just couldn't discipline them any further. Sara.... I let it go." Suddenly tired, Grissom looked down at his desk. "The man I spoke with from IA is suggesting that Sara over-reacted and failed to follow correct procedures, and that she did that because her judgement was impaired due to her personal relationship with Nick."  
  
"So what? He thinks Sara wouldn't have fired had it been you or me or Warrick or, I don't know, Ronnie from QD instead of Nick?" Catherine made an exasperated noise. "Well, obviously, Grissom, I was having a personal relationship with you when I shot Syd Goggle. What is that man on? This is bloody ridiculous!"  
  
Catherine had obviously taken the idea of Nick and Sara having a relationship in her stride, but her anger over the attitudes IA were displaying came as somewhat of a relief to Grissom. He preferred to stay away from the provinces of emotion, because he always got lost and because his own emotions often seemed inadequate or simply wrong. Catherine had enough for them all.  
  
"What are you going to do, Griss?" asked Warrick, who was calmer, and harder to read than Catherine. No one really knew what he was thinking at any given time, especially about what had happened with Holly Gribbs all those years ago. His error of judgement had cost more than anyone else's, and Holly would remain with him forever.  
  
Grissom didn't want Warrick's faith and trust right now, not when he so absurdly felt that he had failed them all. On the other hand, their leader he was and their leader he would remain. He wasn't about to let any of them down now. "I'm going to see the Sheriff," he said.

* * *

Sara awoke suddenly, feeling instantly trapped. Her dreams had been full of gunshots and dead bodies, multiplying within a small, windowless room, in which she stood, unable to escape.  
  
She was still lying on top of Nick, her body wrapped tight in his arms, but that wasn't what she wanted. Looking at his face in the dim light she saw him peacefully sleeping, but she also seemed to see that look which had caused her to pull the trigger. Even the very familiarity of her room seemed gruesome as it reproached her for what she had done.   
  
All her instincts were screaming at her to obliviate her memory or to get out in some way and as she didn't keep alcohol in the house any more there was only one thing she could do. Her gentle movements not betraying her frantic thoughts, Sara carefully tried to wriggle out of Nick's arms without waking him.  
  
When he stirred, inevitably, she froze instantly, her head somewhere on his chest. "Sara?" he asked groggily. "Where're you going?" One of his hands found her head and began stroking her hair.  
  
"Uh, bathroom," she lied, closing her eyes and hating herself.  
  
"Okay." Nick ran his fingers through her hair and let her go, seemingly reluctantly. Sara got out of bed and pulled on her robe. As she opened the bedroom door she paused and turned to Nick as he spoke. He looked remarkably pale against her dark red bedlinen, the sheets halfway down his chest. "Will you come straight back, Sara?" he asked, and he sounded so much like a child and so unlike the man she knew that she nodded despite herself. "I will."  
  
She walked softly across to the bathroom and braced herself against the sink to inspect herself in the mirror. Her hair was a mess and the light make-up she'd been wearing was smudged. She was still wearing the necklace she'd put on for work, but with a sudden movement she undid it and dropped it on the counter.  
  
Sara searched her face, looking for the woman who had killed a man the previous night. All she saw was a women who'd killed because she'd felt she had to, who'd killed for the sake of the man she loved. It wasn't what she'd wanted to see. She splashed water on her face and dried it, flushed the toilet, and went back to her bedroom. Nick had rolled over onto his side, and as she went to climb back into bed he stretched out his arms towards her. She let him pull her tight against his body, although that feeling of claustrophobia came reappeared, overwhelming in intensity. It was an odd feeling to have Nick need her comfort, and an awful feeling to know that now he needed more than she could willingly give. Loathing both her sense of guilt and her need to escape, she forced herself to remember all that Nick had done for her, and rested her forehead against his, feeling his breath against her face. "I love you, Nicky," she murmured, partly because she knew that that was what he needed to hear and partly to assuage her own guilt. She heard her voice say the words and knew she meant them as much as she ever had, or more, but it didn't bring her comfort. Nick smiled, and, if it were possible, increased his grip on her.  
  
When Nick closed his eyes Sara did so too, relieved at the tiny escape. She was immediately attacked by the sight of that bullet sinking into soft flesh, and let out a whimper she was barely aware of. She opened her eyes again, and lay there, listening to Nick's breathing and trying to get up the strength to wait it out. She knew that if Nick's embraces could reach her heart, things would be a lot easier.

* * *

TBC...


	5. Chapter Five

**_HOUSE OF CARDS_**  
  
**Disclaimer:** I know it and you know it. I don't own CSI or anything associated with it.

* * *

Nick woke for the third time. He had seen in his dreams a bullet hurtling towards him but had woken, thankfully, before impact. It always happened like that. As he opened his eyes the reality of the night before came rushing back, almost as forceful and awful as his dreams.  
  
He was at Sara's, but the bed was strangely empty. "Sara?" he called, his voice shaking slightly. "Sara?" He cursed himself for the plaintive note in his voice and for the fact that he needed her so much. He checked the clock. Ten am. He got out of bed, put on his boxers and t-shirt and went in search of Sara. It took him all of twenty seconds to assure himself that she wasn't in her apartment at all. Stuck to the fridge with a magnet was a note: _9.30am. Nicky, had to go for a run. I hope you're OK, help yourself to whatever. Love Sara_. He took the note off the fridge and ripped it in half. Nick knew Sara's instinct when she was upset was to run for miles, but he still felt abandoned. He needed her. He didn't want to be alone.  
  
Nick went morosely into the living room and put on the Discovery Channel, but it held no distractions for him today. All he could think of was guns and dead bodies, and Sara. He needed her. Didn't she know that?  
  
Someone knocked on the door. Nick jumped, his heart racing with unwanted adrenalin, but it didn't stop him being grateful for the diversion. Catherine. He opened the door.  
  
"Nick! Uh, I was looking for Sara. Hey, are you all right?"  
  
Nick shrugged. "She went for a run," he said, ignoring Catherine's asked and unasked questions. "Come in."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
"Coffee?"  
  
"No. Thanks. Nick, look, I don't know what to say about - about anything. I'm sorry about what happened last night."  
  
"Yeah, well, it happens, doesn't it?" Nick looked away.  
  
"Yeah. Are... are you all right?"  
  
Nick smiled grimly. "I'll cope."  
  
"What about Sara? Is she okay?"  
  
"What do you think?" Catherine wasn't the company Nick had wanted, and her concern grated against raw nerves.  
  
"Well, no. Not Sara. Look, Nick, you and Sara..."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Oh. Well, that's... nice..."  
  
"It is." Nick looked away again. "I'm sorry," he said after a few moments, sighing. "I'm not in a very good mood."  
  
"Yeah. I figured. I guess you're entitled."  
  
The sound of the door opening and shutting broke the awkward silence. Sara appeared in her running gear, clutching a water bottle, her hair scraped back into a tight ponytail. She'd obviously been running hard and, it seemed, through eyes blinded by tears. Nick looked her as she halted abruptly in the doorway and some of his resentment disappeared.  
  
"Cath!"  
  
"Yeah. I just came to see if you were all right?"  
  
"Well, you know, aside from the fact that I keep seeing myself _killing_ people..." Sarcasm dissolved into tears and Sara fled. Nick heard a suppressed sob as the bedroom door slammed shut behind her. "We've both got appointments with the counselor today," he said in a half-hearted attempt at a joke. Catherine didn't smile.  
  
"Nick, I - " Catherine obviously stopped saying whatever she had been about to say. "Go and talk to Sara. If you need anything..."  
  
"Yeah. I know."  
  
Nick watched Catherine leave, then gently pushed open the bedroom door. Sara was lying face down on the bed amid the tangled sheets, and though the curtains blocked out most of the light, he could tell she was crying. "Sara..." he said, sitting down on the bed and touching her shoulder. "Hey. It's okay. Sssh. Sar - "  
  
"Go away," she cried, raising her head. Something inside Nick's stomach clenched at the look on her face. "I just want to forget, Nick, I just want to forget, I..."  
  
"Sweetheart - "  
  
"Go away, Nicky. Please. I can't..." Sara buried her head amongst the pillows. Nick felt the muscles in her back tense as she kicked one leg in anger. "Just leave me alone!"  
  
Hurt and bewildered, Nick gathered up his clothes from the floor. "I'll be at home if you want me."  
  
The bedroom door slammed again, and, a few minutes later, the front door. Desperately alone, Nick got into his Denali and prayed that he wouldn't cry until he got home.

* * *

At almost the same moment as Nick reached home and unlocked his front door with hands that didn't quite co-operate Catherine had reached the lab. Grissom had an appointment with the Sheriff at eleven and she wanted to be there. Grissom wasn't particularly tactful when he was angry, and antagonizing the Sheriff wasn't likely to sort things out.  
  
It wasn't just Sara's probably rather tenuous position that was bugging her, but Grissom's as well. It was because of Grissom that she had her job, and because of Grissom that she'd kept her job. Holly Gribbs had died because of Warrick's carelessness, Nick didn't always know when to keep his mouth shut, and everything she'd personally done had come back vividly. No one else had blown up the DNA lab, putting Greg in hospital, injuring Sara and Jacqui and several others, destroying thousands of dollars worth of equipment and, worse, crucial evidence for thirteen cases. Mere weeks after that she'd compromised the evidence in that first case against Sam Braun by comparing his DNA to hers. Catherine knew that under any other supervisor she'd have been out on the streets, and that she should have lost her job several times over.  
  
It was a moral dilemma that sometimes perplexed her when she was trying to sleep. Night by night they worked to enforce the law, but she, and the others, and Grissom by his complicity, had undermined rules put in place for a very good reason.  
  
That was why she was accompanying Grissom to the Sheriff. If it was going to come down to it, she wasn't going to let her friend go down alone.  
  
Grissom was in his office, staring fixedly at his tarantula. Catherine poked her head round the door. "Ready to go, Gil? I'll drive," she offered.  
  
"Did you see Sara?" Grissom asked as soon as they'd pulled out of the parking lot. Catherine knew him well enough to catch the suppressed tone in his voice and to understand what had caused it.  
  
"Briefly. She'd been for a run."  
  
"And?"  
  
Catherine contemplated the look on Sara's face. "Not good. At all. But Nick was there, so I left her to him."  
  
"He coping?"  
  
"I don't think so. He's dealing with having a gun pointed at his head, again, as well as whatever private hell Sara's in at the moment. It can't be easy."  
  
"No," said Grissom. He sounded preoccupied, and Catherine left him to his thoughts. For years she'd wondered if anything would happen between Grissom and Sara - if two self-confessed loners could break through the gulf between them. There had been in change, on Sara's part, in recent years, and now she knew. If Grissom had ever truly wanted Sara - and Catherine was sure he had - then he'd lost out to his younger colleague.  
  
In light of the current situation, Catherine couldn't think of it as such as bad thing. She suspected Grissom was uncomfortable with the depths of emotion to which Sara was capable of plunging, and found them rather disconcerting. The expression on Sara's face was one which Catherine wasn't going to forget in a hurry, but if anyone could cope with it it would be Nick. He knew the extent of pain as well as Sara did, and he had an intuitive way of comforting people that was well out of Grissom's reach. As she drove, sneaking sideways looks at Grissom, she wondered if he realised that as well.  
  
The Sheriff was waiting for them in his office, a stack of what looked suspiciously like CSI personal filews on the desk in front of him. "I know why you're here," he said.  
  
Grissom leaned forward. "Good. But let's just make sure we're on the same page, shall we?"

* * *

TBC... 


	6. Chapter Six

**_HOUSE OF CARDS_**

**Disclaimer:**Nothing that you recognise from CSI belongs to me, and I'm not making any money from them either. They just make me procrastinate.

* * *

Kim Bolton was a tall slim woman with masses of dark red curly hair and a smile that lit up her face, but Sara was determined not to like her, not to fall into the trap of confessing everything to this departmental counselor. She was here because it was required and that was that.

"Sara. I'm Kim. Take a seat."

Sara shook hands as politerly as she could manage, and sat down. She was exhausted, and that made her temper even worse. She hadn't slept well, she'd gone running, she'd come home, she'd snapped at Nick, she'd gone running again, she'd tried to sleep, she'd worried. She'd sat there and looked at the phone and tried to work up the courage to call Nick and apologise, but had gone running again instead. Her legs felt like they were about to fall off.

"Sara, I've been asked by David Elliott of Internal Affairs to talk to you about what happened last night and assess your ability to return to field work. That's standard procedure. However, he's also had a look at your personal file, as you may have gathered, and he's worried about some comments in respect to your handling of certain cases. He asked me to discuss those with you as well."

Something cold grabbed Sara around the heart. "_Which_ cases?"

Kim picked up a piece of paper. "A number of rape cases. Specifically the Susanna Kirkwood case."

"That's irrelevant." Sara swallowed, hard, trying to get rid of the lump in her throat. "That's got nothing to do with what happened last night, _or_ my ability to work in the field."

"That's what we've been asked to discuss, Sara. There's also the matter of your relationship with Nick Stokes."

"That's got nothing to do with any of this either," Sara protested, knowing that it had everything to do with it and that, even if it didn't, the department was capable of making it central to the issue. She swallowed again, and looked at the clock above Kim's head. The thought of what was to come in this hour was making her feel ill.

"I'm sorry, Sara, but we've got to talk about it."

"Great. While we're at it, would Elliott like my life story as well?"

"I'm not going to give him the details of what you tell me, Sara. I'll only give him my opinion."

"That doesn't help."

"No." Kim considered Sara's face. "All right, tell me about last night."

"I shot a man because I thought Nick's life was in danger. I didn't consciously intend to kill him, but I was trained to shoot to kill." The air of bravado was not enough to get her away from the reality of the words _shoot to kill_. Sara gripped the arm of her chair, fighting the urge to get up and run. If she wanted to keep her job she couldn't afford to run from this, and no matter how far she ran anyway, it wasn't likely she'd be able to escape.

"How did you feel when you saw this man pointing a gun at Nick?"

Sara fixed her eyes on the clock and tried to find the words. "Scared."

"Why?"

"Because I thought he was about to _shoot_ Nick."

"And why did that make you scared?"

Sara bit her lip. "It would make anyone scared. Isn't that enough?"

"No. I'd like to know why it made _you_, specifically, scared."

Sara watched the seconds hand on the clock tick rhythmically by. She made herself answer when it had done a complete circuit around the clock face. "I - I didn't want him to be hurt, I didn't know what I'd do if he - if he died, I - I was just - _scared_." She couldn't do it. She couldn't sit here in this room with this woman and make out like what had happened last night, what was _still_ happening in her head, was nothing, was just an ordinary boring incident. But neither could she let Kim see just how much she cared, because that was dangerous. She clenched her hands together in her lap and dropped her eyes from the clock to her white knuckles.

"Okay. What were you thinking before you fired?"

Sara ducked her head down still further, letting her hair fall in front of her face. "That I couldn't let him hurt Nick."

"And you fired and hit the man, and then what happened?"

"I - I don't really remember. I think I ran outside and threw up and Nick came to find me." Thinking of Nick coming after her when he had enough of his own problems to deal with made her feel worse. Without noticing it, she gripped her hands so tightly that the nails of one hand began to dig into the skin of the other.

"And then... Captain Jim Brass... escorted you both to PD when he arrived on the scene."

Sara nodded a yes.

"What did you do while you were waiting for your interview with Mr Elliott?"

"I - I don't really remember that either. I - think I locked myself in the bathroom."

"Why?" Kim's voice was gentle, without accusation, but everything she asked increased Sara's need either to run or to retreat further, within the curtain of her hair where the only pain was what was inside her.

"I had to get away," Sara whispered.

There were a few minutes of silence. Sara, listening to the ticking of the clock, knew that Kim was trying to give her time to collect herself, but she couldn't help but feel exposed and vulnerable, in front of Kim's seemingly all-seeing eye, waiting to have a stranger pry into the dark parts she held jealously.

"Sara. Look what you're doing to your hands," Kim said softly.

Sara blinked and focused on her hands. Where the nails were digging into the skin blood red marks were beginning to appear. She snatched her hands away from each other and stared at the blood rising through the semi-circular cuts.

"Did you know that was happening?"

"N - no."

"Have you done anything like that before, Sara? Do you ever deliberately hurt yourself?"

"I didn't mean to do it."

"No, but has it happened before?"

"Not really," she said, struggling to get the words out.

"Okay. You had the interview with Mr Elliott, and then what?"

"I went home." Sara's eyes were still fixed on the brilliant red of her blood. As she looked at her hand she seemed to see the blood spreading out across the man's shirt after she'd shot him. She felt sick.

"Did you see Nick?"

"Yes, he was waiting for me at my place. He's got a key."

"And?"

"We... went to bed," Sara muttered, praying that Kim wasn't going to push on _that_ point.

"Okay. Did you sleep well?"

"No. I had... nightmares... and Nick had nightmares..." Sara shrugged. Suddenly, not quite knowing why, she grabbed a tissue from the box on Kim's desk and wiped the blood from her hand.

"What about today?"

"I went running, three times, and I couldn't stop crying, and I shouted at Nick so he went home and didn't - I didn't - didn't call him..." Sara put a hand to her mouth to stifle a sob, and felt tears wetting her cheeks. She kept her head down and hoped vainly that Kim wouldn't notice.

"Why didn't you call him, Sara? Did you want to?"

"I - I wanted to - I just - "

"Did seeing him remind you of what happened?"

Sara nodded, raising her hand from her mouth to wipe her eyes, and swallowing. "I didn't - he - I knew he needed - needed me and I just couldn't - couldn't cope with it."

"It's all right if you cry, Sara." Kim's voice was sympathetic. "Do you feel bad about what you said to Nick?" Sara nodded again. "Can you tell me why?"

"Because he needed me, and - " Sara drew a long, shuddering breath, "I'm a bad g-girlfriend and he doesn't..."

"Doesn't what, Sara?"

"Deserve someone like me!" Sara stood up, knocking the chair over in the process, and whirling around to stare at the door. She wanted to run. She wanted to kick herself. She wanted to fall on the floor and cry. She wanted to drink Jack Daniels until she was so drunk she passed out. And she couldn't do anything of those things. No matter how hard she tried to control her body the urge to sob was battling all her defences. Sara instinctively wrapped one arm round her stomach and brought the other to her mouth again and tried physically to hold them in, to hold herself together.

She felt Kim's hands on her shoulders as she gently propelled her around and back into the chair which she had put upright again. "Crying does help, Sara. I'm not going to report you to Mr Elliott for crying and it's not going to make me instantly decide you're unfit for fieldwork. What you're feeling are perfectly normal emotions."

Sara lost the fight. Putting her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands she gave up and cried. She'd been crying almost non-stop since last night, or at least that was what it felt like, but this was different. This was the sort of crying that she only indulged in when she was alone, when the world was collapsing on her head, and it was the sort of crying that sometimes made her throw up. She hated herself for every sob even as she began to feel some of the tension draining away.

Kim waited until she'd stopped crying and hiccuping, and had wiped her face and blown her nose. "Better?"

"Yeah," Sara admitted, twisting her hands in her lap. She chanced a glance at the clock again. Twenty minutes left.

"Don't worry about the time, Sara. Tell me about Nick."

"I..." Sara realized, almost frustrated, that she felt more inclined to talk. "What do you want to know?"

"How long have you been with him?"

"About eighteen months, I think."

"What does it mean to you? - being with him?"

Sara drew a deep breath, and let it out again. "Lots. I feel comfortable with him. I'm not used to that. He can cheer me up when I'm miserable, and he puts up with me. He's very patient."

"Are you in love with him?"

"Yes."

"Do you feel like you owe him for, as you say, 'putting up with you'?"

"Um." Sara considered this. "Yes. I... feel like I take a lot, but I'm not giving anything back."

"Is that why you told me you didn't think he deserved someone like you?"

Sara winced as Kim repeated her words. Yes, she'd said it, and she'd thought it, but she'd never meant to say it. "I guess so."

"What sort of person do you think he deserves, then?"

"Someone who hasn't got so many issues. Someone who's more fun to be with. Someone who..." Sara's voice trailed off as she thought.

"Someone who loves him?" Kim asked. "Do you think that's enough for him?"

"If it wasn't, he'd have left by now. But I still think he deserves more."

"Isn't that up to him to decide?"

"Maybe." Sara saw Kim searching her face again, but held her gaze this time.

"I'll let you go now, Sara. I'm seeing Nick in about half an hour, but I'd suggest you try talking to him after that. I think it'll help. Don't worry," Kim added, catching the look on Sara's face. "I'm not going to tell him what you told me, just as I won't tell you what Nick tells me. Now, I can't clear you for fieldwork just yet. Can you come back tomorrow - same time?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Bathroom's through there, if you want to wash your face."

* * *

Catherine walked into the break room. She'd gone home after the meeting with the Sheriff and fallen into an exhausted sleep before hauling herself out of bed in time to see Lindsey when she came home from school.

Warrick and Greg were leaning back in their chairs, drinking coffee in silence. When Catherine entered, they put their cups down almost simaltaneously. "How'd it go with the Sheriff, Cat?" Warrick asked.

Catherine poured the last dregs of coffee into a cup and shrugged. "I think he's dug himself a hole. He wants to look good for the elections, and then he gets an officer-involved shooting. And it's not a police officer in some nice cut and dried case. And then an over-zealous IA officer goes through all our files and discovers all the things that Grissom just sort of... glossed over." She half-collapsed into a chair beside Warrick.

"So... what? Is Griss in trouble now too?"

"Oh, who knows. The Sheriff's trying to dig his way out of the hole as best he can. I think he'd like to keep it all quiet and forget it ever happened, but now IA's involved and the press has gotten hold of the shooting."

"What are they saying?" Greg asked.

"Oh, it's not so bad - do you not read the papers or anything, Greg? Just that an unidentified man was shot and killed last night by an on-duty CSI when he threatened another CSI. And that the man's gun was empty. They didn't mention Sara's name or anything."

"So will _she_ be in trouble? I mean, she was only trying - " Greg was cut off as Grissom strode into the room.

"Right," said Grissom, briskly. "We've got a busy night tonight. Warrick and Greg, you get Nick and Sara's case. Did you run the DNA from Sara's dead man?"

Greg nodded.

"Good. Compare it to the semen found in the rape victim. Catherine, you keep working the case you were doing with Warrick. I've got a 419 in Henderson." Grissom looked round at them all. "I don't know when Nick and Sara are going to be back on board. Day shift can't spare anyone, or at least Ecklie says they can't. Greg, I'm pulling you totally out of the lab until they get back, or we get more staff."

Greg grinned. "No complaints."

"I think it's going to be a long few days, guys. Just keep your heads down, work hard, and avoid the press if you can." Grissom watched them all file out, sighed, and followed them. It _was_ going to be a long night.

* * *

Nick closed Kim's door behind him and leant back against the wall for a moment. He felt emotionly drained, as he always did after a counselling session, but better for it. He'd talked about the man with the gun, but mostly about Sara. It felt weird, knowing that Kim already had Sara's point of view, and that she wasn't going to tell him.

He didn't want to go home to an empty house.

Without much hope, Nick reached into his pocket for his cellphone and switched it on. _One missed call_ flashed onto the screen. He dialled voicemail.

"Hey. It's me. Um... Nicky, I'm sorry. I hope you're okay. Um, I'm at home, if you want to... yeah. Okay. Hey, you, uh, know I love you, right? Uh, okay. Bye."

Despite himself, Nick smiled. He only knew one person who was capable of leaving of message like that. He pushed the phone back into his pocket, and set off for Sara's.

* * *

TBC...


	7. Chapter Seven

**_HOUSE OF CARDS_**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything you recognise, as much as I might like to.

**Author's Note:** Huge thanks to all of you who are reading and reviewing this story.

* * *

Warrick and Greg headed for the DNA lab as soon as they'd left the break room. Neither of them spoke as Greg ran the test to compare the DNA of the man Sara had shot with the man who had raped and murdered young Caroline Flynn.

Greg frowned. "_Not _a match to the rapist." Frustrated, he slapped the piece of paper onto the desk.

"Damn." Warrick picked up the paper and looked at it for himself. "_Damn_."

"So... what was that guy doing in the warehouse, then?"

"Oh, who knows. From what Nick said he had to have been high on something. Anything could have been going down in that warehouse before the girl got raped."

"So now what?"

"Now we work it as any other case. Everything Nick and Sara collected last night is in the evidence vault. We start from there and see what we can do."

They collected the box from the vault and took it into an empty room where they busied themselves laying out the contents of the box on a table. There wasn't a lot: a few samples that needed to be run through Trace, the clothes Caroline Flynn had been wearing, a few things Sara and Nick had found around the warehouse.

"It's going to be a long night, isn't it?" Greg asked.

"Uh huh." Warrick gathered up the samples for Trace and handed them to Greg. "Go give these to Trace, and I'll pack this up."

"Well, that was a waste of time, then."

"We're going back to that warehouse, man."

Brass insisted that if they were going back to the warehouse, they were having officers at every entrance. Greg wanted to know what the chance was of there being another gun-brandishing madman on the scene, but Warrick kept silent, Holly Gribbs always in his mind. Nick could have died last night. He wasn't taking any risks.

The warehouse was empty and echoing and shadowy, despite the lights and the armed officers hovering in every doorway. Warrick marched in, remembering Holly, remembering Nick. He saw the two bloodstains on the floor: one from where Caroline Flynn had died, in the far corner, curled up, her clothes ripped - he'd seen the photos - and one from the man, still nameless, who had died by a bullet from Sara's gun. There the man had fallen, so Nick must have stood there, against the wall, unable to move, watching the man coming closer and closer. And Sara had stood where he was now, and pulled the trigger.

Warrick shivered. He was guiltily glad that this hadn't been his case last night.

As they had no way of knowing which areas had been processed they had to start over, and hope that nothing crucial had been disturbed in last night's mayhem. Warrick was grateful for the steady, familiar work when everything seemed to be falling to bits. Nick had been held up with a guy with a gun, Sara had killed a man, the Sheriff and IA were going through _all_ their personal files, dredging up the mistakes and failings of long ago...

He'd known he'd never _forget_ Holly Gribbs, but he'd started to believe he could move on from her shadow. He had no doubt that Nick thought the same about what had happened with Kristy Hopkins, or Catherine the DNA lab. Everything they thought was over had been brought back to hang over their heads like an anvil until someone in some office decided to let the anvil drop, or to put it away again until next time.

Warrick worked the area where the man had died, because he'd rather Greg not. He wasn't sure why, but as he worked around the bloodstain, he thought about Holly, and realised that the pain and the memories weren't going anywhere.

* * *

"Hey." Nick had let himself into Sara's. She was curled up on the couch, a cushion in her arms. Nick knew she kept a teddy bear in her closet. She'd only brought it out a few times and he didn't ask about it.

"Hi," she murmured, trying to smile and putting the cushion down. They looked at each other across the room. Sara sighed. "I'm sorry about this morning."

Nick let a tiny smile flicker across his face. "Still hard to say things like that, isn't it?"

"Don't wind me up, Nick."

"Okay."

After a few minutes of rather awkward silence, Sara stood up and crossed the room. Nick didn't move, hard as it was; didn't even flinch when she stopped just inches from his face. He looked for the signs of tears, but didn't see them. For a moment they stood, looking at each other, and then Sara half flung herself at Nick and buried her face in his shoulder. "I'm really sorry," she muttered.

More relieved than anything else, Nick held onto her. For a moment he thought she was crying, but then she pulled her head back and looked at him. "I _am_ sorry."

"I know."

"Are you all right?"

Nick shrugged. "Sure. Are you?"

"Oh, I don't know."

"Did you talk to Kim?"

"Yeah."

In the silence that followed, Nick tried to forget all that he felt that day and tried to concentrate on Sara. He had a number of questions buzzing round in his head, and he'd learnt that often it helped to ask the hard questions sooner rather than later. Before he could gather up his courage and form the words, Sara had leaned in and kissed him.

Nick hesitated. He knew what she was doing, because he'd done it himself in the past, but his lips responded without instruction from his mind. He felt Sara's hands run down his back, and he kissed her harder. Maybe she had the right idea. Maybe they could just... forget.

Later, he lay sleepily amid the tangled sheets of Sara's bed, looking at her lying on her stomach, her head cushioned on her arms. She was facing Nick with her eyes closed, and she looked more peaceful than she had since this whole thing had started last night. Remembering what he'd wanted to ask her, Nick was reluctant to break the mood. He could cuddle up to Sara right now and go to sleep, and risk repeating the past. They'd been in this position last night, and look where they'd ended up.

Carefully, he put his hand on Sara's head, and ran it down as far as the small of her back to where the sheet covered her. She opened her eyes and gazed at him. "Mmmm?"

Nick looked into her eyes, forced himself not to get lost in them, and considered everything. "Can we talk?"

"Sure."

"About this morning - "

"I _said_ I was sorry."

"I know. I know. Look, Sara - " Nick sighed. He hadn't expected this to be _easy_, but... "I just want to know where I stand. This morning, you were shouting at me and telling me to go away. Now..." Lost for words, Nick waved a hand between their bodies.

"I said I was sorry."

Frustrated, Nick, who had propped himself up on one elbow, let himself drop down onto the bed. "That's _not_ the issue. I just want to understand."

"You know I love you." Her voice was troubled, and her eyes had drifted away from his.

"Oh, _Sara_." Nick closed his eyes for a moment. "I _know_. I wasn't doubting that. I just want to know what you were thinking."

Sara turned her head so her forehead rested on her arms and Nick could no longer see the expression on his face. "Have you ever felt totally trapped?" she asked her pillow. "When it seems like everything bad is just closing in on you and you have to get away?"

Nick shook his head, knowing perfectly well she couldn't see him. "No."

"Well, that's what it was like."

"And I'm part of everything bad?"

"No... but when it gets like that, I have to be _alone_. I have to run and run because that just makes it all go numb. That's why I used to drink," she admitted after a pause.

Nick touched her head. "That's what I don't understand," he said quietly. "I'd rather be with someone when I feel bad."

"So you'd rather I didn't run away this morning?" Sara's voice wasn't as harsh as Nick might have expected, and she turned to look at him again.

"I'd rather you didn't run away at all. But Sara, if you have to run, please just tell me. Don't yell at me."

"Sorry."

"Stop apologising."

"Sorry." Their eyes met, and both grinned, then Sara went solemn again. "Are we all right, Nicky?"

"Yeah. You know, we'll get through this, hey?"

"Yeah. I just... every time I think I've got it all straightened out in my head I think about something else. Some other aspect of the whole mess." She yawned. "Sorry. I've been running."

"I know," Nick said, as soothingly as he could, moving in so their bodies touched. Sara closed her eyes and leaned her head against Nick.

"I was thinking about Caroline before you came," she whispered.

_Caroline?_ Nick searched through his mind, and remembered. Caroline Flynn. The girl who had been raped and murdered in that warehouse and had started this whole thing. "Hey, whoever's working the case'll get the guy. Maybe..." Nick decided not to mention the man Sara had shot.

"I know. But I promised Caroline - " Sara paused, and swallowed. "I promised her I wouldn't give up till I found him. I just wish I could work her case."

Nick pulled her close, and wondered what to say. That bit about having _promised_ Caroline was unnerving, and it wasn't the first time something like that had happened. Sara's issues with rape victims sometimes kept him awake, and considering the issue had sometimes made him almost physically ill. He'd been there himself, and she knew it, and the fact that she wouldn't talk about what had happened to her - because Nick was convinced something _had_ - was more upsetting than he liked to admit. "There's nothing you can do," he said feebly.

"That's what I hate."

"I know." Nick dropped kisses on Sara's head as she yawned again. "Go to sleep, honey. I'll be here as long as you want me."

* * *

TBC...

Sara opened her eyes. "And I'll be here as long as you need me."


	8. Chapter Eight

_**HOUSE OF CARDS**_

**Disclaimer:** As we've already established, I don't own anything you recognise. I should also tell you that I know very little about counselling or the wider world of law enforcement - much of what's contained in this and other chapters is the product of some murky corner of my mind combined with various impressions from books and TV shows. Everything I'm writing about could be completely off. Just so you know.

* * *

Kim Bolton was enjoying a well-deserved rest, complete with cup of coffee. Just as she'd leaned back in her chair and put her feet up on the desk, someone knocked on the door. She returned to a respectable position and called to the person to come in.

"Hi, Kim."

"David. Hi." Kim gestured the Internal Affairs officer into a seat.

"What can you tell me about Sara Sidle and Nick Stokes, Kim?"

Kim looked longingly at her coffee. "I'm happy to have Nick back in the field on Monday. I'll see him again, but he's holding up fairly well. He's got good coping strategies - he's had to have them. You know this isn't the first time he's had a gun at his head. He knows me well enough now not to hold back and I'm pretty sure he's dealing with this all right. I barely scratched the surface with Sara, but I'll tell you I don't think you've got a valid case in saying she fired because she saw Nick in danger. She would have done the same for anyone."

"I know," David conceded. "But that's one of the reasons we discourage workplace relationships. It can impair people's judgement. The press have been fairly quiet about this shooting, but if news got out about their relationship..." He shrugged. "It just doesn't look good, and we need the people of Las Vegas to have total confidence in everyone associated with law enforcement. I don't need to tell you that the Sheriff is aiming for total transperancy - particularly as he's seeking re-election."

"I know what you're saying, but I really don't think you've got a case against Sara at all. That's just my opinion, though, and I'm certainly not a legal expert."

"I don't _want_ to have a case against anyone. They're good people. But once I started looking at their files, I came across all kinds of breaches of regulation that seem to have gone unpunished. I know there's no such thing as black and white, cut and dried situations, but there are members of that team who have made mistakes that killed people, and they haven't faced the required sanctions. I need to find out what's going on on that shift, Kim. I know they're getting results, but law enforcement must be seen to be solid and honest. This is all far too murky, and someone's got to clear it all up."

"That's true." Kim took a sip of her rapidly cooling coffee, wishing she could enjoy it in peace, but knowing that that was highly unlikely.

"All right," said David after a few moments. "About Sara and the rape cases..." His voice trailed off and he looked uncomfortably down at the floor. "I need to know if she's jeopardising her ability to work rape cases objectively."

"We didn't get to that. I'm seeing her again tomorrow."

David rubbed his forehead. "Okay. All I need to know is whether she can handle rape cases without bias. I don't need to know what's going on. It's none of my business and none of the department's business. Just - well, I'm glad dealing with that sort of thing is up to you."

"Thanks," Kim said dryly. She wasn't looking forward to pushing Sara on the rape issues. The woman had opened up today, but tomorrow could be a whole different story.

David got to his feet. "I'll speak to Sara in the morning. We won't be pushing to charge her on the shooting, but I'll have to keep working on the general team situation. Thanks, Kim."

"Bye." Kim watched the door close behind him. Departmental counselors were frequently caught between the individual concerns they dealt with, and the good of the department. Seeing both sides didn't mean one was able to reconcile the two. She took a few more sips of her coffee, and was grateful that, at least, IA weren't going to continue with the shooting enquiry. Sara's mental state seemed precarious enough as it was.

* * *

After nearly two hours going over the warehouse and another two in the lab, Warrick and Greg were no closer to discovering who had raped and murdered Caroline Flynn. The semen found in her body had yielded no hits on CODIS, and Jacqui was slowly and patiently running the myriad fingerprints collected from the warehouse with, so far, no luck. Brass and PD were trying to track down anyone who'd had any connection with the warehouse, but everyone who hung out there seemed to have faded into the background with Caroline's death. They had a dead girl and no clues. It was one of the most frustrating parts about being a CSI - running into constant dead ends, no matter how hard you tried. The frustration was both emotional and intellectual.

They'd retired to the break room in an attempt to regain perspective. At the moment, that involved large quantities of coffee and discussing football, and at the moment that didn't quite seem to be succeeding.

"So," said Greg suddenly during a pause in the conversation. Warrick knew he was taking the conversation away from football. "Did you know about - you know. Nick and Sara?"

"No." Warrick wasn't in a hurry to admit it, even to himself, but he felt disappointed that Nick hadn't told him, even in secret. He'd thought they were friends. Actually, he knew they were, and _that_ was why he was upset about Nick having neglected to mention it.

"Kissing in the locker room. I wonder how long it's been going on?"

Warrick shrugged, and poured himself another cup of coffee.

"So... what do you think will happen to them? Will they be allowed to keep working together?"

"I don't know. Up to the Sheriff and this IA guy, I suppose."

"And what's going on in here, gentlemen?" Catherine had come in, unnoticed by either of them. Her breezy tone didn't quite hide the tension in her voice.

"We're discussing Nick and Sara."

"Oh? What about them? Hey, who drank all the coffee? I'm desperate here."

"Catherine, you're a woman. Did you know what was going on?"

"You know, Greg, I'm not seeing the connection between those two sentences. _But_, unlike you two, I do keep my eyes open. I had my suspicions."

"And you never told me?" asked Greg, doing his best to look betrayed.

"Not my secret to tell, Greggy. Besides, I didn't actually _know._ It's probably good for both of them." Catherine surveyed the two men. "How's the Flynn case going?"

Warrick groaned. "It _isn't_. It's dead end after dead end, at the moment. All I want is to get this case closed, but we've got almost nothing to go on."

"Damn," said Catherine, softly. "I think we all need to get it over with."

"As soon as it's a reasonable hour we're going to see Caroline's friends. I've got my fingers crossed." Greg put his hands on the table. He'd crossed the fingers of both hands.

"You keep 'em crossed, Greg. Guess we need all the luck we can get."

They sat in silence, soaking up the needed caffeine. Each was considering, in their own way, the developments of the last day or so. Nick had almost been shot; Sara could be in a whole lot of trouble; the two of them were having a relationship; IA was questioning Grissom's abilities as leader; much that they had thought was over had come back to haunt them. They all felt, suddenly, the precariousness of stability. One incident, and everything you thought you knew could be turned on its' head. Uncertainty was something CSIs hated, even more so in their own lives than in their cases, and this was uncertainty that affected and unbalanced them all.

* * *

Sara woke from a whirlpool of terror and confusion to the feeling of Nick's hands on her shoulders. She tried to focus on his eyes as she struggled to breathe normally, her heart pounding desperately. She knew logically that the _events_ of her nightmare hadn't really been happening, but the emotion was nonetheless real and strong and overwhelming. Instinct taking over, she leapt out of bed and made it as far as the bedroom door before she remembered the conversation she and Nick had had about running, and also that she had nothing on, and stopped short. "Oh hell," she cried.

"Sara - " Nick was coming up behind her.

"I'm - " she began, her mind still leaping wildly from one thing to another as the residual feelings of the nightmare battled for supremacy. It suddenly became very important to keep her mouth shut as she dashed across to the bathroom and threw up in the toilet.

Tears streaming down her face, her legs weak, Sara dropped to the floor. All she could feel was fear such that no dream should have been able to awaken, and her own futile attempts to push all the emotions back into their proper places so she could think sensibly. She was hardly aware of Nick coming in and flushing the toilet, then sitting down on the floor and gathering her into his arms. All that made her Sara seemed to evaporated, leaving nothing but a mess of pain and anguish and dark memories, and all she could do was cry.

Nick forced back his own urge to throw up as he held on to Sara as to a drowning man. His urge wasn't physical, it was emotional, and he could cope with that. What he couldn't cope with was whatever had happened in Sara's nightmare and whatever was still attacking her from within. He felt utterly helpless in his desperation to help her, to at least ease her pain. He wasn't even sure she knew he was there, but there was no way he was leaving her. He rocked her and kissed her forehead and murmured he knew not what words of comfort into her ears, and felt like Sara was on some far distant planet.

Neither knew how long it was before Sara's tears died away and she lay against Nick, her head on his shoulder, breathing raggedly and limply, and hiccuping. More than a bit scared by the sheer violence of what had just occurred, Nick carefully manoevured them both around so he could lean back against the wall. He wasn't sure he had the strength to keep sitting up unsupported, and he still felt sick. He leaned his head against Sara's and rubbed her arm, trying to get something out of her. She was almost like a zombie, and as the minutes passed Nick felt increasingly worried.

"Oh, _Nicky_," she whispered, eventually.

Nick breathed a silent sigh. "Are you all right?" he asked, trying not let his voice betray his concern.

"I don't know."

"What happened?"

It seemed like Sara had lost the last bit of pride or stubborness that had kept her worst experience a secret as she began to talk. Her voice weak and flat throughout, she described the nightmare and then, without Nick asking, confirmed what he'd long suspected. She had no tears left, but Nick shed enough for both of them as she talked, telling him what she'd told no one else.

"Oh, _Sara_," he said shakily when she'd finished, searching for the right thing to say, something that could make it all better, and knowing there was no magic solution.

They sat silent until Nick remembered they were sitting on the bathroom floor wearing nothing. Gething strength from somewhere within him, he pulled Sara to her feet and back to bed. When they were back under the covers, lying in each other's arms, Sara said, "I didn't want to remember that. Not now. Not ever. I was doing my best to forget, Nick."

"I know. I know."

"I went to sleep thinking about being a killer and woke up - remembering - "

"It's OK, sweetheart," he murmured, grateful that Sara was going to be seeing Kim, and hoping that she'd tell Kim what she'd told him, because he knew he couldn't cope with it alone, especially not now. Not when his own dreams had had guns and death in them, and when IA was on their backs and they weren't allowed to work.

"Nicky," said Sara, hesitantly. "Don't let me run."

"Why not?" Nick asked quietly, fearing the answer.

"Because I don't trust myself at the moment."

* * *

TBC...


	9. Chapter Nine

**DISCLAIMER**: If you recognise them, they aren't mine. Yeah.

**A/N:** Sorry about the delay with this chapter. I'm on holidays now, so hopefully I'll be able to get the rest of it up in the next two weeks. As always, thanks to everyone who's reviewed, and all reviews, constructive or otherwise, are always appreciated.

* * *

All of Caroline Flynn's friends seemed to be possessed of large amounts of black clothing and absolutely no information that was relevant to the investigation. Apparently they'd all been too drunk that night in the warehouse to remember who was there. Some seemed almost not to care, and no about of tact, charm, or demanding could get anything out of them. The others were genuinely upset, both about Caroline's death and about the fact that they couldn't help. Those were the girls Greg felt sorry for.

After three hours, he and Warrick were no closer to discovering who had raped and murdered Caroline.

With everything else that was going on in the lab - the sporadic media appearances, Nick and Sara's absence, Grissom closeted in his office and Internal Affairs snooping around - it would have been good to have put an end to the Flynn case. The case had been the start of all the problems, and with the case still open it seemed like the problems, too, would be ongoing.

Greg knew that _closing_ the case wouldn't get IA off everyone's backs, or solve anything else, but at least it would feel like they'd accomplished something. Besides, he wanted to get this guy for Sara's sake.

To Greg, the guns that they all carried had always seemed somewhat unreal. Oh, he knew all about guns - and he knew damn well what they could _do _- but despite it all, despite what he really knew about the dangers of working in the field, he'd never really thought that any of them would have to fire their guns in defence. It felt like the invisible barrier between them and the crimes they investigated every night had melted away into nothingness.

He could tell that the case, and everything else, was bugging Warrick, too. He hadn't said much for a while, except to question those girls.

Those girls. The all-too-human reminders of what had happened to Caroline Flynn. What had happened to Caroline could have happened to any of those girls in their black clothes. Did some of their mourning for their friend come from a guilty relief?

Greg shook his head and stood up. The last of the girls had gone, and he and Warrick had been sitting in silence in the interrogation room. It was time to go home and try to sleep, try to find some normality in life. "Come on," he said to Warrick, who was gazing somewhere in the distance. "I guess we're finished for now."

* * *

Grissom should have been at home. Catherine knew this, and she also knew he was blaming himself for far too many things, and that arguing with him wasn't going to help. She entered his office without knocking first, the weight of her self-assumed responsibility for him heavy about her body. "You hungry?"

Grissom shrugged. "No."

"When did you last eat?"

"Yesterday, I suppose."

Catherine watched him. He had all the grace of a sullen child when he got like this. She seemed to use much of the same skills in dealing with Grissom that she used to deal with Lindsey in one of her teenage moods. If it wasn't for all that she owed him, and for respect of their long friendship, Catherine suspected she would have resented the time she spent coping with him. He was the boss. He should have been holding them all together, not cooped up in his office staring at papers and dwelling on things. Catherine remembered what had happened with Holly Gribbs, and how he'd kept them all going then, and what he had done for them on so many other occasions. But now, because of Sara and Nick, and this IA investigation, he had retreated into his shell.

He was probably blaming himself for IA's interest in the team. It was his "failures", as IA would see it, in discipline that had caused the investigation and thus the uncertain atmosphere in the department. Even the lab techs were subdued, and this unusual thing bothered Catherine probably more than it should have done. All they wanted, all they needed, was normality, and Grissom seemed unwillingly or unable to provide it.

"Well, come and get some breakfast with me," was all she said. Reproaches, reprimands - they were pointless when he got like this. "_Now_."

Grissom took a last look at some papers and stood up. He looked tired. "I'm not really hungry, Catherine."

"Well, I am. You need to get out of here. Move."

Grissom moved, slowly, and rather reluctantly. As they left, Catherine spotted Warrick and Greg returning from PD, neither of them looking happy.

There was no dealing with all three of them now. She couldn't fix them all. The solution had to start at the top, and it was probably going to involve pancakes. She gave Warrick and Greg a wave, and kept going.

The cafe around the corner from the lab remained a sign that some things, at least, never changed. Catherine decided on a table in the back corner: had it been her alone she would've sat in the window, to watch the world go by, but Grissom was in hibernating mode. "I guess you don't want to talk about it," she said, watching the waitress head for the kitchen with their orders. Grissom was fiddling with a napkin.

"I just feel very responsible for everything that's happened."

"Gil, you didn't make that man walk into that warehouse, brandishing a gun."

"We identified him, you know," said Grissom, dully.

"Yeah?" This was the first Catherine had heard of it, but then she'd been flat out all night, and Grissom hadn't exactly been communicative. Lab gossip had faded to a mere whisper.

"Raymond Ortega. Just arrived in Las Vegas. Unemployed. He was full up with methamphetamines."

"Do we know what he was doing in the warehouse, then?" Catherine asked once she'd absorbed this information.

"No. As he's just arrived it's unlikely he had any connection to anyone who was there the night Caroline Flynn was killed. He was staying with a friend nearby." There was still a distinct lack of animation in Grissom's voice, but at least he was conversing. This was a great improvement, in Catherine's mind.

"Well, what happened isn't your fault."

"I'm responsible for the team."

"You didn't make Sara fire that gun."

"Sara did what she had to do."

Catherine was watching Grissom's face, or as much as she could see as he kept his face down. Sara was a weak spot, as she'd suspected. For a second, pausing to gather her thoughts, Catherine wondered how Grissom would have reacted if that initial shot, that catalyst, had been fired by anyone else. Had it been her he wouldn't have been nearly so concerned; had it been Nick, Warrick or Greg he'd have been much more able to show how he felt. Everyone knew Grissom watched over his younger colleagues with a paternalistic air, but he was all too aware - as was Catherine, as were them all - of the ambiguity that had swirled around his relationship with Sara since the younger woman had arrived in Las Vegas. Because it was Sara, because of how he felt or didn't feel about her, this was harder for Grissom to cope with. It was probably just as big a problem as the IA investigation into the team as a whole.

"I'm worried about Sara," Grissom said, before Catherine came up with a response to his previous comment. A little startled, Catherine eyed him. "Why?"

"Well, she wasn't all right when you saw her, was she?"

"No," said Catherine, remembering.

"Kim Bolton and David Elliott aren't prepared to allow her back into the field yet. They'll let Nick back on Monday. Of course, neither of them can really tell me about Sara, but I gather they're both quite concerned."

"She's tough, Grissom. She'll get through whatever's going on," Catherine said with more belief than she felt. She'd been watching Sara for years, wanting to help but never quite knowing how, and all too often making things worse out of sheer thoughtlessness.

"I hope so."

"You still care about her, don't you?"

"Of course I care," Grissom replied, a little too defensively.

"That's not what I mean," Catherine said softly as the waitress brought their coffee and pancakes over.

"I don't want to talk about it, Catherine."

"Don't you think that's what got you into this mess with Sara?"

Grissom winced. "She's with Nick now. He can look after her."

As she ate her maple syrup covered pancakes in silence, Catherine thought about this statement. Grissom had said what she'd thought - that Nick could look after Sara. As she considered it though, she wondered if he could. With the probable exception of Sara, she was the only one who knew what burdens he carried with him. She'd done amateur psychoanalysis of Nick, and had come to the conclusion that he liked to make other people feel better because he couldn't make himself feel better. Between Nick's need to fix other people's problems and the demons which seemed to haunt Sara, they had the potential for a very unhealthy relationship. Even in a normal relationship, surely everyone shouldn't write it off as one partner looking after the other. Catherine kept these musings to herself, but couldn't prevent herself, like Grissom, from worrying, and wanting to worry, about them both.

Neither of them said anything for the duration of the meal. Grissom too had his own thoughts. As they paid up and left the cafe, Grissom spoke up. "If I've ruined all your careers by not punishing you when I should've done - I really am sorry, Catherine."

Focused as she had been on the problem of Nick and Sara's relationship, it took Catherine several seconds to drag her mind back to the other problem at hand, the one that had exacerbated the simple shooting. "Grissom," she said, "It's not going to come to that." And this time she really believed in her own reassurance. There was no way it was going to come to that - for any of them.

* * *

Kim Bolton looked up from her paperwork at the face peering round the edge of her partly-open door. Time for her first client of the evening, and it was bound to be a difficult start to the night. "Sara," she said, smiling, feeling the twinge of nerves she always felt when she knew she would have to push through the boundaries of a particular client. "Come in."

* * *

TBC...


	10. Chapter Ten

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Yeah.

* * *

Nick had gone back home. Sara was at Kim Bolton's for her second counselling session, and Nick had siezed his hour of freedom to go home and pick up some clean clothes. Most of his clothes were at Sara's anyway, and this was more of an excuse to go home than anything else.

Every time he went home it seemed that his place was more impersonal, more sterile than ever before. He often ended up leaving with a few more things to take to Sara's - books, CDs, photos, clothes. Her apartment was becoming an amalgam of both their things and both their lives, but sometimes coming home was a kind of freedom.

The red light on his answerphone was flashing. Sighing, Nick went over and pushed the 'play' button. "Nick, it's Mom. What's this about a CSI in Las Vegas shooting a man? I hope you're all right, dear." "Nick, it's Lauren. Hope you're not mixed up in this shooting thing. Call me. Bye!"

Nick deleted the messages. His mother and one of his older sisters. He'd talk to them later - he wasn't in the mood for rehashing the shooting yet again. And then he'd have to tell them about Sara, and that was just too complicated. Besides, Mom would probably start planning the wedding as soon as Nick told her he was practically living with some girl. And Lauren - well, Lauren and the rest of his sisters still behaved like children whenever Nick got a new girlfriend. It wasn't often that he _did_, but the memory of the last time was enough to make him shudder. Well, at least Mom and Lauren had provided a distraction, however brief. Those hadn't exactly been forthcoming recently.

Nick's bedroom was now almost totally devoid of personal mementoes. The family photos and other things that had littered the room were at Sara's. They'd never discussed the fact that Nick's possessions were accumulating at Sara's; maybe that would have meant too much. Neither of them were good at committment. It was too big a scary issue, but maybe one they needed to face, considering all that had happened lately.

He sat down on his bed, trying to remember the last time he'd slept here alone. It had been a long eighteen months. Good, but very long in the secrecy, in the sneaking about, in what had involved almost outright lies at times. Nick hated dishonesty, and he knew Sara did too, but at first circumstances had seemed to demand it, and with time the secrecy had become habitual. It had seemed easier to keep their relationship a secret than to disclose it to the others and then to have to explain it all.

A photo of Sara still lay in the top drawer of Nick's bedside table. He pulled it out and inspected it. It was an old one, that Sara probably didn't know he had. Nick had taken it at a lab Christmas party a few years ago, when he had known Sara to be half in love with Grissom and had fancied himself over his original attraction to her. How much time they'd wasted, moping over other people.

Nick lay down, thinking about Sara. He loved her - sometimes he thought he'd always loved her. Yet she was complicated and confusing and so very _Sara_ like. The early days of their relationship had been heady and passionate and it had been a few months before Nick realised just how much depth there was to Sara. He loved her more for it, but sometimes he felt he was walking a tightrope in his attempts to keep her happy, to stop her from slipping into the depths of despair. They both carried pain in their lives, but where Nick had done his best to deal with it Sara held jealously to it, seemingly unable to let it go. Maybe Kim would be able to help... she'd helped him. Sara's pain... Nick winced, involuntarily. It was hard to watch someone he loved go through that, and in a way he was selfishly glad she hadn't told him what had really happened to her until last night.

His house was so empty. He'd never noticed it before. He was all too used to the sound of Sara's footsteps, her breathing, the low hum of music or her police scanner in the background. It was empty without the presence of Sara, but it still carried the spectre of Nigel Crane. Closing his eyes, Nick remembered Nigel, remembered all he had done, all that he had caused him. Maybe it was time for committment with Sara, time to talk about where they were and where they were going. No doubt his mother's wedding plans would be looking too far ahead, but... he needed to know, and doubtless Sara did too, that they were going to be committed to each other, no matter what the result of this IA investigation was... IA. Always, work came up as a block, a hindrance. But what David Elliott had said had been more hopeful than negative.

Nick lay on his bed, considering, dreaming, hoping. No matter what problems she had, no matter what baggage she was carrying, he couldn't be without Sara. She completed him - they completed each other. There was no future for them separately. They had to be together, and surely Sara felt the same way.

* * *

Grissom seemed to have lost all his enthusiasm for work. He'd barely slept, despite Catherine's attempts to relax him with conversation and pancakes. He wondered if Catherine knew how transparent her efforts usually were. He wasn't _that_ stupid. Still, there was no being angry at Catherine - it was something he always found impossibly hard, and now his lack of energy stopped him from even trying. Having spent the day lying in bed, thinking about the IA investigation or Nick and Sara or both things at once his head was buzzing, and if he wasn't well used to the sensation he might have thought he was going crazy.

He'd had to take Greg off the Caroline Flynn case too, which hadn't helped, but he needed Greg to help Catherine with a double homicide. He was all but ready to get Warrick to close the case anyway. If it wasn't for the fact that they all seemed to need an answer just as much as Caroline's parents did, Caroline's file would probably be on his cold case board. They needed Nick back, and they needed Sara back, and they needed _normality_. Which, admittedly, wasn't particularly normal, but Grissom reveled in watching the always-professional mayhem that sometimes occurred amongst people working the night shift. The ability to work all night and sleep during the day brought with it other essential traits.

There was no excitement or even intellectual curiousity to be had in what he was working on now, which was finishing up another homicide case. This case had been fairly cut and dried right from the beginning and it was, frankly, boring. There were no distractions to be had, and Grissom felt he dearly needed one. Maybe when he'd closed this he'd review the Caroline Flynn case one last time with Warrick. Fresh eyes, and all that.

When his pager beeped, Grissom almost considered ignoring it, certain it was likely to be something else that he didn't want to hear. Sara and Nick both had their second appointments with Kim Bolton that evening, and he knew Kim was worried about Sara's emotional state. He was too, of course, but he wasn't sure he wanted a professional opinion about it. However, to ignore the page would have been unprofessional when IA was on all of their cases. What the point of the investigation actually _was_ Grissom wasn't entirely sure. From what he'd got from David Elliott and from the Sheriff, it was almost as though they were investigating simply because they thought they had to. It was an excuse that didn't wash with Grissom; if he did things because he thought he had to Warrick, Catherine, and possibly Nick would all have lost their jobs long ago. Things weren't as black and white as IA seemed to want to think.

When he saw David Elliott's number, Grissom experienced the proverbial sinking heart feeling. Almost a little angry, he put his evidence away - slowly, carefully, doing everything by the book - and went back to his office. Elliott picked up on the first ring.

"Mr Grissom?"

"Yes."

"Thank you for getting back to me so promptly. My colleagues and I - "

Your _minions_, thought Grissom peevishly, and felt a little better.

" - have completed an investigation into your team."

Feeling he was expected to say something here, Grissom said, "That was fast."

"It was efficient. We have come to the conclusion that, while some of your actions were not taken according to correct procedures, they appear to have been taken for the good of your team and of the lab as a whole."

"Oh," said Grissom blankly.

"We'll be taking no further action at the moment, but we will have to place a summary of the investigation and our findings into your personal file. The IA department will be keeping a closer watch over your team in future, Mr Grissom."

The price of IA always hovering over them, waiting for a single slip-up, was a much better result than Grissom had been expecting. Relieved, he said, "I think your findings are fair."

"I hope you realise, Mr Grissom, the extent to which it is important that law enforcement maintains its integrity."

"Of course," said Grissom, thankful that Elliott knew nothing of Catherine Willows and the $250,000 cheque. "What about Nick and Sara?"

"As I said earlier, Ms Bolton and I are prepared to allowed Mr Stokes back into the field from Monday's shift. Of course Ms Bolton will want to keep seeing him for several weeks as he readjusts. We've cleared Ms Sidle of any wrongdoing in the shooting of Raymond Ortega, but we're still not prepared to allow her back into the field until she's cleared by Ms Bolton."

Grissom nodded to himself. This was really no different to what he'd heard last time he'd spoken to Elliott, but he'd foolishly allowed himself to get his hopes up about Sara. He missed he more than he liked to admit, which was even more stupid considering all he knew of her relationship with Nick. "We can certainly use her in the lab when she's cleared for lab work."

"I haven't spoken with Ms Sidle yet, but Mr Stokes seemed to think it was very important that she have something to do."

"It is." Probably even lab work would be too boring for Sara; she called being stuck in the lab being grounded. It would be good to have her around anyway - and good to know she was safe. Grissom wanted to see her, but he hadn't had the guts to visit as Catherine had. In the lab, he would be able to observe her covertly and ascertain things for himself. "About Sara and Nick - " he said, and stopped. He'd been tempted, wildly, just for a moment, to tell Elliott that the shooting of Raymond Ortega had opened his eyes to the dangers of romantic workplace relationships and that maybe IA intervention... Then he'd realised how childish that was, and how much it would wreck Sara. If she really cared about Nick, Grissom wouldn't be the one to cause her to have to choose between her career and her partner. He still loved her, and breaking her and Nick up would do nothing to advance his cause. He'd lost Sara a long time ago.

David Elliott didn't seem to have noticed the pause. "Well, that's certainly an issue. We're prepared to consider the improper conduct charge an aberration. I think it's clear that their work hasn't been unaffected, and while we had to investigate the possible effect of their relationship on the shooting, it was obviously a very minor element of what happened in that warehouse. We're prepared to let it slide for now, but obviously we'll be monitoring their behaviour carefully."

"Of course," said Grissom, and swallowed.

* * *

TBC...


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Disclaimer: **No, they suddenly haven't become mine. Because, you know, they belong to someone else and all that. I'm just playing with CBS's toys.

* * *

Sara was curled up on the sofa under a brightly coloured patchwork quilt Nick's grandmother had made him. Nick thought she was asleep at first as he stood in the doorway watching her, but then she seemed to sense his presence and lifted her head. Her face displayed the marks of tears.

"You okay?" Nick asked, moving to stand in front of her.

"Yeah."

Nick fixed her with his I'm-not-that-stupid look.

"Not really," she admitted. She'd pulled her hair back into a pony tail, but the sides were coming out and hanging loose around her face. She looked strangely attractice like that, and strangely vulnerable too as Nick sat down beside her.

"Want to talk about it?"

Sara lay back down, head in Nick's lap, and looked up at him. "We always talk about me, and never about you."

"That's not true, Sara."

"It seems like all we talk about is me. _My_ problems. _My_ issues. I just - I don't want this to be all about me, Nicky."

There was honesty in those big brown eyes. Nick stroked her hair to buy himself time to think, forcing himself to look back over their relationship. He remembered talks about the drinking problem Sara had had, about her old infatuation with Grissom, about her relationship with her family. Surely they'd had comparable conversations about him, but all he could remember was the time he'd told her about what had happened when he was nine. He'd had to force himself to do it; he'd long ago promised that he was going to be honest about it. Even over these last few days - he'd cried in her arms, certainly, but had he actually told her what he was feeling? Probably not in so many words. "Where did this come from?" he asked.

"I was just... thinking. It seems like I'm always taking, never giving."

"But you give me much more than you know."

"That's not the point, though." Sara took one of Nick's hands, and squeezed it. "I feel like I've been really selfish."

"_Why?_" Nick asked, amazed and a little startled, squeezing back. "You haven't been."

"Because it seems like the whole focus of this relationship has been on me, on you making me feel better about myself and my issues."

"But I'm just as screwed up as you are?" Nick asked, smiling despite the fact that he was thinking hard.

"Not necessarily. I just feel like you know more about me than I know about you, and that it's my fault because I let you make me talk, and I don't ask you questions. Much."

Continuing to stroke Sara's hair absentmindedly, Nick looked away from her, focusing his gaze on a point somewhere on the opposite wall to enable himself to think without being distracted by the slightly beseeching expression on her face. There was no way to deny that making Sara feel better made Nick feel better. Kim had once forced him to admit that he used solving other people's problems to make him feel better about himself. She'd been referring to the families of victims at the time, but it held true for Sara.

"Nicky, _please_ tell me you get what I'm saying."

"I do," Nick assured her, returning his gaze to her face. "I - you're making sense, actually."

"Makes a nice change, then."

"Yeah." Nick smiled slightly, looking down at that face he knew so well. "I'm sorry, Sara."

"Huh?" she said, sounding as startled as Nick had felt earlier. "You haven't done anything!"

"I think I've made you talk _so_ we can avoid discussing my issues."

"Oh," said Sara. Nick searched her face, looking for signs of disappointment or anger. He didn't see any, and Sara was an awful actress, so he relaxed slightly. "So I wasn't just imagining things?"

"No," said Nick softly, tracing the line of her cheekbone with one finger. "Was that what you'd been crying about?"

"I think I was crying about everything."

"Sara," Nick said, alarmed.

"You're doing it again. Look, I'm just tired and stressed and a mess and I just shared my darkest secrets with a complete stranger." Sara swallowed. "If you want to make me feel better, just _talk_ to me."

Nick mentally added the words _for a change_, and suspected that Sara had too. "All right," he said, and gathered his courage. He'd been expecting to discuss anything but this - he was sure Sara knew, as he did, that the investigation against Grissom and the rest of the team had been dropped. The status of their relationship was still up in the air, as far as all things official went, but the fact that David Elliott was talking quite confidently about them both returning to the field seemed quite promising. He'd been expecting joy, or at least relief, rather than this. He started to talk, surprising himself, by telling her how scared he'd always been that she'd leave him, and how he scared himself sometimes because he thought he needed her too much. Sara squeezed his hand even tighter as he told her what he'd been thinking when he'd visited his house that evening, not saying anything till he came to the end. "You want to move in permanently?" she asked.

"Well - yeah. I guess so," he told her anxiously.

"I'm glad."

"Are you?"

"Of course. I love you, silly."

"I know. I just thought - maybe - " Nick was forced to stop trying to stutter out half formed thoughts when Sara sat up and kissed him. He managed to say nothing else coherent until three-quarters of an hour later when they came back to reality, lying once again amidst the tangled sheets of the bed. "So when can I move in?" he asked then, absorbing the very warmth and life that was Sara.

* * *

The Caroline Flynn case had been tacked to Grissom's fish board. There was almost something ceremonial or ritualistic about these occasions, and as Grissom pinned the case up Catherine, Warrick and Greg stood behind him in a half-circle of solemn silence. Caroline's body had been released to her family for burial, but not without some harsh words on the part of the grieving parents, who had desperately needed someone to blame for Caroline's nightmarish end, and had suggested that the CSIs had focused too much on the shooting of Raymond Ortega. Grissom had shaken his head sadly. He couldn't explain how the death of Raymond Ortega had heightened everyone's desire to catch Caroline's killer. He didn't possess the words.

"Good work, guys," said Grissom, meaning it. "Nick'll be back for Monday's shift, so let's hope we don't get anything big between now and then."

"What about Sara?" asked Warrick.

"She hasn't been cleared for field work yet." Grissom didn't say why, and the others had carefully avoided asking. They all knew Sara hid something dangerous behind her tough facade, and despite burning curiousity had always dodged the issue. "But she'll be in the lab from Monday as well. You might learn a thing or two, Greggo."

"But I'm the _man_," Greg protested, mildly. Warrick pretended to swat him round the head, and they all filed out of Grissom's office in search of breakfast.

* * *

Sara remembered being happier than she'd been in what seemed like forever as she'd drifted off to sleep, but now her peace had been shattered by the ugly memories of what had happened in that warehouse. That man with his gun; the look of sheer, desperate terror on Nick's face. The bullet from her gun, which had turned out to be a cruel and unnecessary bullet, ripping into the man's flesh as he collapsed in death to the floor at Nick's feet.

She felt sick. Terrible memories had long been intruding on even the happiest times, and she never once got used to it. All she wanted was a normal life and it seemed she was never to have it. Frustrated, she realised she was crying, yet again. She didn't protest like she sometimes did when Nick, sleepily, pulled her into his arms and rocked her like a child.

Oh, they'd get through all this. She knew that. They'd come through worse individually, together they'd certainly cope. It was just that she didn't want life to merely be about coping. Someday, somehow, they were going to find away to move on. But for now, tears slowly fading away, Sara Sidle knew she had to be content to lie in bed with the man she loved, who loved her, and wait for pain to diminish once again.

As long as she had Nick, and Nick had her, they could face down even the worst of nightmares.

* * *

**THE END!**

Huge thanks to all of those who've reviewed, and put up with this fic! I've got no idea where all the depressing angst stuff came from, so I hope it all made sense. Astralis


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